Expectations
by EHWIES
Summary: She's working part-time at Madame Malkin's when Draco meets her, and he decides she's worth the trouble of small talk when she doesn't flinch at the Dark Mark on his forearm.  Draco and Astoria. Written for khasael at LiveJournal's Hogwarts Is Home.


**Expectations**

She's working part-time at Madame Malkin's when Draco meets her, and he decides she's worth the trouble of small talk when she doesn't flinch at the Dark Mark on his forearm. "What did you say your name was again?" he says caustically, jerking away his arm when the girl has finished pinning up his sleeve.

"Astoria Greengrass," she says automatically, monotone and bored, and he has to admit, he's a bit offended that she's characterized the whole of their interaction in the last quarter-hour by routine without the slightest bit of intimidation or interest. She's bustling about, reaching for pins and tape measure and doing everything the horrid Muggle way, and she doesn't even _try_ to look him in the eye, not that he thinks a girl like her ought to have the courage to see him as an equal.

Doesn't she know who he is? Because _he_ knows who _she_ is, now that she mentions it, and he doesn't think he can take the mortification of being the forgettable one in the room. "Daphne's baby sister? The Hufflepuff?" It's been a long, long time since he's set foot in Hogwarts, but he still vividly recalls the timid little second year who spent week working up the courage to ask Blaise Zabini to take her along with him to the Yule Ball. Rumor has it she cried for three hours after he turned her down and was too embarrassed to talk to anyone in Draco's year ever again.

"If that's how you want to see me," Astoria retorts, and Draco can tell from her tone of voice that the petty days of dances and dates are over. "If we're going to play this by labels, doesn't that make you Draco Malfoy, son of a scoundrel who bribed Harry Potter to keep him out of Azkaban?" she adds, perfectly clipped and composed.

Draco hasn't had the easiest time assimilating after the war, but he thought he'd retained enough of a reputation that he wouldn't be treated with _insolence_, especially from an inferior like Astoria Greengrass. "Did I _ask_ for your opinion of me?" he says, rhetorically and dismissively enough, at least in his mind.

Astoria doesn't seem to get the message. "I don't know if a bastard of a rich boy like you can relate, but I grew up in a family where being sorted into Hufflepuff was treated like a phase of adolescent rebellion, where the only way to survive was to keep my mouth shut and my head in the clouds and to _never_ voice the slightest dissent about You-Know-Who or the war or any of it," she says. It strikes him that the Dark Lord has been properly dead for four years now, and most people are still working up the nerve to say his name. "You didn't ask for judgment, but neither did I. I let the world cast me into the role of the meek, useless Hufflepuff for long enough. No more."

He thinks back to necklaces and mulled mead and Vanishing Cabinets and that godforsaken room of hidden things, a time of stress and exhaustion and don't you dare show the slightest hint that you're working your tail off to _anyone_ or you can kiss your miserable little family goodbye, and Draco thinks that maybe she's not as pathetic as he'd thought.

_No more._

It's hard going, being the golden boy of a Death Eater family, and Astoria doesn't make it any easier. He's always seen inner circles as being more of a Slytherin trait, but for a Hufflepuff, Astoria networks like nobody's business. (On second thought, Draco should have known: she's turning all his stereotypes upside down by the minute.)

At any rate, she asks him to accompany her to some function or other one Saturday night, and when he tries to tell her it's a waste of his time, she cuts him off to say, "How many years were you and Pansy Parkinson together, Malfoy?" –because they were always on a surname basis and old habits die hard. "You ought to be used to this sort of thing by now."

"I should hope that I'd never _get used_ to being any woman's accessory at an event," says Draco disdainfully, turning away.

Astoria doesn't scoff it off like he expects, though, smiling gently and telling him, "I'll be honest with you, most people don't understand what I see in you—they still think of you as haughty and manipulative. I don't think you're a villain, Malfoy, though you still come across like you think you're superior ninety percent of the time, don't you worry. But for the ten percent of the time when you're doubting yourself, just remember that backing down is letting them win. I won't fault you for your arrogance if it means you can walk into a room and feel confident."

"Letting who win?" parrots Draco, for once in his life at a loss for anything else to say.

She smiles again and says, "Whatever you're afraid of."

It's a gentle moment, months later, when they get engaged. Draco doesn't have a spiel about true love or soul mates, just three little words and a ring—but he offers her a smile and calls her by her first name, and he thinks (knows) she understands. Astoria's always been the communicator anyway.

He surprises even himself in asking her to marry him, because she's the younger Greengrass and he's the Malfoy heir and she might just be the only person he's ever let in, the only person who knows him for him since Wizarding Britain decided that pure blood isn't respectable anymore. Draco doesn't have a job or a friend in the world, and most days he's still figuring out where he fits into this upside-down new world order that doesn't tolerate people like him, and he wouldn't blame her if she said no.

But she says yes, like he thinks he knew she would, and he thinks, too, that this is why he asked her in the first place: because she knows him for him, even loves him for him, and expects nothing more or less.


End file.
